Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an image information hiding technology, and more particularly to a high dynamic range image information hiding method.
Description of Related Arts
In the field of image processing, the dynamic range refers to the logarithm of the maximum and minimum luminosity ratios in a digital image. The dynamic range of the real scene reaches 9 orders of magnitude, but the existing low dynamic range (LDR) image adopts 8 bits/color/pixel to store data and loses part of the scene information. The high dynamic range (HDR) imaging technology makes up for the deficiency, which accurately shows the brightness range of the realistic scene through floating-point data, so that it is increasingly concerned and used in digital photography, ultra-high-definition movies and television, video games, remote sensing, medical imaging and other aspects.
Information hiding is a way to use digital media to hide important information. In recent years, the information hiding technology for low dynamic range images has developed rapidly, but researches on high dynamic range images have just started. The existing high dynamic range image hiding algorithm is able to be divided into two categories, wherein the first category sacrifices the image quality in exchange for higher embedding rate, the embedding rate of the existing top algorithm is only higher than 5 bits per pixel (5 bpps); the second category is able to achieve lossless embedding of information, but the embedding rate is less than 0.2 bits per pixel (0.2 bpp). Therefore, it is necessary to study a high dynamic range image information hiding method which is able to realize the balance between the embedding rate and the image quality.